I’ve been thinking about what it takes to be vegetarian, not so much because I want to be a vegetarian but mostly because I’m personally trying to eat less meat, more plants. I find that the flavor of a dish needs a boost either from spices or from fats, usually both. Because I’m also counting calories I just can’t add butter and cream to increase flavor and that certainly creates a situation that requires more thought than I’m ready to give it. Luckily there is always the pizza solution.

Pizza is easy because it requires little work and can be thrown together and baked up usually in a half hour. Remember to make the dough ahead of time and keep it in the refrigerator, actually the longer it sits in there the better it gets…I’ve used some that was in the frig for 2.5 weeks and it was excellent. This lovely pizza is adorned with slices of a peeled green apple, red onion, mustard greens, a scant toss of cheese and a link of AmyLu’s Smoked Chicken, Apple, Gouda sausage. According to the nutrition data one link is 110 calories and 5 grams of fat with 460 grams of sodium and since this pizza serves 2 with leftovers it falls within my range of low fat, low cal, low meat.

Yes, I know it’s not actually vegetarian, but then I’m not either. Note: for my local readers, the AmyLu sausage is available at the Middleton Costco.